A charming heroine on a great epic quest

Curse Bearer by Rebecca P Minor

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I had the pleasure of reading a portion of this manuscript while it was still in development. The character of Danae Baledric has intrigued me ever since, and I’m delighted to see her story published so others can enjoy it as much as I have.

Minor creates well-rounded characters who are engaging and sympathetic. Her villains are perhaps too vile, with no reedeming characteristics whatsoever. But they are also chilling.

Some reviewers have described the beginning as slow. I disagree. The beginning is just what it needs to be. There’s action and suspense moving the story forward, and the pace increases as you get further into the plotline. This is well-done pacing.

Minor’s storyworld, which also appears in her Windrider Saga, is more richly imagined here, with more detailed descriptions and varied locales.

My one complaint -- and it’s hardly worth knocking a whole star off for it -- is that Minor reaches for a lofty tone that doesn’t quite ring true. I felt this in the Windrider Saga also—as if she’s trying to be the next J.R.R. Tolkein instead of being the first Rebecca P. Minor. In the passages where Minor has found her own voice, the writing sings. But every once in a while, there’s an off note. I have the same problem when I try to sing soprano.

That said, Minor does a great job of getting her heroine into more and deeper trouble as the story progresses. And since not all of those troubles are resolved, a sequel is in the offing. I’m looking forward to it.

Disclaimer: I was given an advance copy of this book for review purposes.

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I finally figured out what Pinterest is for

Pinterest screenshot. Need to describe a gothic church? There you go.

Every time a new social media network comes along, I resist. I do not need one more thing to occupy my time. For a long time, I felt that way about Pinterest, despite some excellent articles about how authors can use Pinterest.

For example, Heather A. Titus, one of my writing buddies from New Authors Fellowship, has a great collection of Pinterest boards related to her writing and other stuff.

I finally took the plunge when I came home from the ACFW conference with a conference program book full of ads for books. I’ve designed a couple of book covers for myself, and a couple for clients. But since my graphic design training is all from the newspaper business, which is totally different, I know I still have a lot to learn. So I wanted to start collecting book covers.
   
As I flipped through the program book, I thought about clipping the covers I liked and then scanning them, but that seemed like a hassle. And then I thought -- Pinterest.

So there you have it. I now have Pinterest boards for different genres that I can use for design inspiration.

I haven’t started amassing “inspiration” boards for my writing, as Heather has, but I did find another benefit to Pinterest. Just by typing in a single keyword from a novel I’m editing, I was able to get a lot of visual references to help my client develop her settings. I didn’t repin those search results to a new board. I figure I’ll just re-do the search if I need to, because I expect to get a whole new set of results.

This service is useful, but addictive. I can see I’m going to need to monitor my time on it carefully. But it’s worth it.

The significance of remembrance

On the left is a poster with photos, names, and stories about those lost in combat. The center and right are posters with handwritten messages to the troops. This is near gate C-1 at DFW airport.

A Texan advised me to arrive at Dallas Fort Worth airport extra early because the Transportation Safety Administration lines are notoriously long there. Turns out this is not the case at Terminal C at 11:15 on a Sunday morning. At least, not this morning. A zero-minute wait at TSA left me with two hours to kill before my flight.

Since I'm coming off a four-day writers' conference at which I totally ignored my calorie count, I figured I could use the time and get some exercise by walking from one end of the terminal to the other.

At the far end of DFW's Terminal C, which is occupied entirely by American Airlines, I found this Memory Wall. Posters contain messages of support for the armed forces, alongside the names, faces, and stories of military personnel killed in combat between Memorial Day 2011 and Memorial Day 2012.

I admit it's possible that American Airlines put up this display as a public relations stunt, so people like me will see it and tell the story. But I think that's unlikely. I think this is a gracious gesture by a company that transports members of the military on a regular basis and chose to honor their service and sacrifice. That this results in a little PR is a side effect.

I only hesitated to write this post for a moment. If a company is going to make an effort to show love for our troops, I can take a few minutes to share the story. If an endorsement of American Airlines is implied, so be it.

Constructive encouragement for those with multiple interests

The Renaissance Soul: Life Design for People with Too Many Passions to Pick Just One by Margaret Lobenstine

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Much workplace advice is based on becoming an “expert” in one’s field. But some of us don’t have the kind of single-minded devotion required to dedicate oneself to a single field for a lifetime. For years, I worried that my career was hampered by the odd personality bent that led me to pursue diverse hobbies or topics of study, sometimes for years on end, only to drop them later for something else. My jack-of-all-trades nature made single-mindedness impossible, but I sometimes regretted my lack of focus. I carved out a niche for myself as the newsroom factotum, but I felt I couldn’t be considered an “expert,” even at copyediting, because I lacked that single-mindedness.

Then I discovered this book.

Margaret Lobenstine has done us a great favor by giving us a reassuring label for our predilection. Being able to label one’s behavior is to increase one’s understanding of it. Better still, by collecting the stories of other Renaissance Souls -- people like Maya Angelou and Ken Burns -- Lobenstine reassures us that we’re not alone.

Reading this book, I discovered that I’m not odd. I’m not scatterbrained. I’m not a failure. I’m a Renaissance Soul.

Lobenstine proposes a continuum of interest, ranging from the single-minded pursuit of one art from an early age, as we see in Wolfgang Mozart, to the multitude of changing interests pursued throughout a lifetime, as we see in Benjamin Franklin. People will fall at different points along this interest continuum, and knowing where you are on it can help you design a career and a life that will be fulfilling.

Lobenstine gives us another helpful label: focal point. This is her term for any area of interest, regardless of whether it’s a job, a hobby, or a hobby you want to turn into a job. She outlines a variety of career paths, including options such as developing an umbrella title to embraces several interests -- writing, for example, can embody numerous topics -- and pursuing two careers simultaneously that complement one another -- such as banking and financial planning.

The book contains a number of exercises meant to help one identify one’s values and interests and prioritize them. These will be familiar if you’ve worked with a life coach or executive coach before, or if you’ve read life and career design books. But the attitude of this book -- the way it embraces the variety we crave -- distinguishes it from all other such books. Because this isn’t just about career design. It’s about designing a life around your interests and desires, with the understanding that those interests WILL change.

Lobenstine recommends picking four or five focal points to concentrate on in any season, while keeping a notebook filled with ideas for pursuing other interests you may wish to keep in store for the future. Then, when you feel you’ve exhausted your possibilities for one focal point, you can pull your notebook out and choose another to take its place. She offers a structure and plan for the kind of interest-shifting Renaissance Souls will do anyway.

But one of the best lessons I learned from this book is that expertise does not require exclusivity. It may take longer to develop -- In my case, it took ten years in a newsroom -- but that doesn’t make one any less an expert.

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Fiction Q&A: Including character names in dialog

© JJAVA - Fotolia.com

Q: I’ve been told not to use names in dialog, except in rare cases. If that’s the case, would the line “I’m speaking to you, Judy” be incorrect?

A: Calling such inclusions “incorrect” overstates the case. An occasional inclusion of another character’s name is entirely appropriate.

What the person who gave this advice is trying to point out is that when real people really converse, they rarely use one another’s names. So we need to be aware whether characters are doing so too often. One symptom frequently found in the manuscripts of newbies is dialog like this:

“Ismene, mine own dear sister,” Antigone said, “what new edict is this of which they tell, that our Captain hath just published to all Thebes? Knowest thou aught? Hast thou heard? Or is it hidden from thee that our friends are threatened with the doom of our foes?”

Ismene answered, “No word of friends, Antigone, gladsome or painful, hath come to me, since we two sisters were bereft of brothers twain, killed in one day by twofold blow.”

“I knew it well, Ismene,” Antigone said, “and therefore sought to bring thee beyond the gates of the court, that thou mightest hear alone.”

Ismene leaned closer. “What is it, Antigone? 'Tis plain that thou art brooding on some dark tidings.”

“Ismene, hath not Creon destined our brothers, the one to honoured burial, the other to unburied shame?” Antigone replied.

Now if you look at the original text, you’ll see that Sophocles is not quite that ham-fisted. Only the first two lines contain the interlocutors’ names. The rest proceed without them. You need them once to show who’s talking, but after that, as there are only two people in the scene, you don't really need any more reminders. Although if it’s a long scene, another once in a while can help -- and can even reduce the need for dialog tags.

Moreover, sometimes such insertions are needed to help the reader keep track of who’s speaking to whom. If three women are working in a kitchen, and Judy is closest to the sink, a line of dialog like “Judy, would you hand me a dish towel?” is ideal.

Dialog needs to be realistic. But that's different from being real.

Intriguing but risky investment guide

Ashes To Riches: How To Profit Spectacularly During The Economic Collapse of 2012 to 2022 by John F. Carlucci

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is not a book for those who like to play things safe. Carlucci seems to have developed some pretty solid analytics. I disagree with him about stopping all trading when the market is down. I prefer Warren Buffet's advice to buy when the market is down. But honestly, I'm a buy-and-hold, dollar-cost averaging kind of girl, so Carlucci's market-timing strategies are a little too far outside my comfort zone.

Nevertheless, I admire the chutzpah of anyone with the nerve to follow through on this advice. His description of end-of-day trading is thought-provoking -- and explains that bounce we so often see in the charts after 3:30 p.m. You can tell the traders get active then. I didn't realize just how much thought went into those trades.

I read this book mainly for its perspective on how the economy is likely to perform over the next decade, and Carlucci offers some good insights there. Lots to think about, and some advice on commodities trading that might be worth pursuing if you have a high tolerance for risk.

Disclosure: I downloaded this book when it was offered for free on Kindle.

Discovering treasures on my own bookshelf

Photo by Kristen Stieffel

Like most bibliophiles, I own more books than I can keep track of. I came across one recently that turned out to be such a gem, I thought I'd share.

You may have seen an earlier post here about the wonderful old books we cleared out of the library when we had to close our old church. The members of the Christian Education Committee, myself included, got dibs. I remember one of the other teachers sidling up to me and saying, "Do I have to arm-wrestle you for the Interpreter's Bible?" As it was twelve volumes, I said he could have it, if I could have the five-volume Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible. Deal.

Once the committee members had their pick, the congregation was allowed to take home anything they liked from what remained. Once they were done, we returned, faced with the nearly impossible task of sorting the remainders into two categories: those another church might want, and those to be put in the dumpster. There were way too many in the second group for any bibliophile's stomach to take.

I admit, I cheated. Many of those books fell in a no-man's land. Too old to be desired by another church's librarian, but to precious to throw out. By the end of the afternoon, I was checking the inside cover of each book for the words "Donated by R.L. Hall." I figure any book that came from the library of the founding pastor was worth keeping. So I started a third box, under the category of "books I have to keep because they once belonged to Pastor Hall."

You may be thinking, "Yeah, but he didn't keep them, right? So they couldn't have been that good, if he wanted to get rid of them." Nope. Pastor Hall died in 1962, and his family donated the books to the church.

While preparing a Sunday school lesson on the second commandment, I perused my shelves for commentaries. One of them, Smoke on the Mountain, was one of those I inherited from Pastor Hall. When I had brought it home, I didn't take much notice of it, beyond noting its topic (so I could shelve it in the right place) and its rather worn and foxed state.

Photo by Kristen Stieffel

But this week, when I took it out, I noticed that it's dedicated to C.S. Lewis. Well, I suppose a lot of books are, but I looked to see how the author knew him. The author turned out to be Joy Davidman. Also known as Joy Gresham. Also known as Mrs. Lewis.

Are you kidding me? I didn't even realize she wrote, let alone that I had a book of hers in my collection. I'm an idiot, clearly.

She wrote the book in 1953-54; it was published in the U.S. in 1954 and in the U.K. in 1955. The British version apparently has a preface by Lewis that's not in my edition. (She married Lewis in 1956). It's a brilliant little book. For example, she warns against putting our focus on the physical trappings of the worship space:

I have fallen into the last and subtlest trap; I bow down to wood and stone, in the shape of a church building…I have forgotten that the church itself is not God.…And yet, if the church is anything except a means to the knowledge of God, the church is nothing but a bore. (Perhaps that's why it so often is a bore.)

I still have several more of Pastor Hall's books sitting unread on my shelves. I look forward to discovering what other treasures they hold.